August 7, 2014 toAugust 24, 2014

Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play! As
larger-than-life personality Maria Callas teaches a master class
for opera singers, she gradually becomes drawn to reveling in and
examining her own remarkable life. Produced here at MCT in
1999, MASTER CLASS was one of our biggest hits! Whether you've seen
it before or only heard about it, you'll want to join us for this
singular event!

Master Class: LGBT Night Out

Opera on Tap - Maria Callas Cabaret

Videos

Photos

Resources

Media Coverage

Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s MASTER CLASS Is A Lesson In What Theater Is All About

Monday, August 18, 2014

by Matthew Perta, Showbiz Chicago; To hear Maria Callas is to understand her. When the renowned opera diva walks on stage in the opening act of Terrence McNally’s Tony Award-winning play Master Class, now being performed at the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, she asks the audience if they can hear her. There are no microphones in the theater, she affirms, because we must learn to listen.

by David Luhrssen, Shepherd Express; Decades after her death, Maria Callas is still among the world’s best known opera stars. Every inch the diva, she was a temperamental force of nature and the power of her voice and her presence could never be ignored.

by Julie McHale, Waukesha Freeman; Angela Ianonne is reprising her role as the talented, controversial opera star Maria Callas to the delight of audiences at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s opening production in its 40th season - Terrence McNally’s “Master Class.”

by Dominique Paul Noth, Urban Milwaukee Dial; Watching a diva instruct advanced operatic voice students at Julliard in the 1970s inspired playwright Terrence McNally to create his own Broadway-bound 1990s version of Maria Callas in “Master Class,” a fascinating mesh of opera and dramatic psychology.

by Paul Kosidowsk, Milwaukee Magazine; For a play saturated with some of the most glorious and dramatic music ever written, it’s somehow fitting that one of the most memorable moments of Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s Master Class is a deep and harrowing silence

Those Who Exist Outside The Thunder in Milwaukee Chamber’s MASTER CLASS

Monday, August 11, 2014

by Russ Bickerstaff, Express Milwaukee; Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s season-opening production of Master Class is a perfectly enjoyable drama. Angela Iannone will doubtlessly be praised quite a bit for her performance as opera legend Maria Callas teaching students at the end of her career.

by Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; ... From the minute this Callas stages her first dramatic entrance — having made us wait, along with her accompanist (a delightfully droll Brian Myers, doubling as music director) — it's all-out war on anyone or anything that isn't sufficiently reverent in what she'll tell us is a "holy place": the theater.

Angela Iannone in a 'Master Class' all her own at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre

Friday, August 8, 2014

by Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; After spending just a few days as master teacher of this year's Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program at Ten Chimneys, David Hyde Pierce already had a solid read on Angela Iannone. "Angela is a force of nature," Pierce said. "She is so full of energy and passion."

by John Schneider, Shepherd Express; “Don’t lose sight of the seeds but keep pushing forward,” says Artistic Director C. Michael Wright of his goals for Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s 40th season. “If you celebrate the past and embrace the future, the present will take care of itself.”

by Michael Muckian, Wisconsin Gazette; Terrence McNally’s Master Class imagines a lesson that three fictitious students might have received from 20th-century operatic legend Maria Callas at New York’s The Juilliard School in the 1970s. Although the play has some basis in fact, it uses the characters and the teaching concept to present lessons that McNally wants his audiences to learn...

An Interview with Paula Suozzi; by Marcella Kearns ; Terrence McNally’s play MASTER CLASS takes us into the world and history of a renowned artist of the world of opera, but it’s also an exploration of the discipline, specificity, craft, and toil necessary to navigate the art. MCT spoke with Paula Suozzi, a Milwaukee-based director of both theatre and opera, about traversing the two art forms.

"Insights on Maria Callas" by Corliss Phillabaum
Want to know more about Maria Callas before coming to see MASTER CLASS? Listen to an audio presentation by local opera and theatre expert Corliss Phillabaum and learn more about Callas' remarkable life and career. Click 'more info'